


Overwhelmed by Pep

by kappa77



Category: Thrilling Intent (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Autistic Character, Autistic!Kyr, First Meetings, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2016-08-24
Packaged: 2018-08-10 14:54:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7849474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kappa77/pseuds/kappa77
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Markus embarks on his first day on campus to make friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Overwhelmed by Pep

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I am not Autistic, I'm Alltisitc, so apologies if I messed anything up. I did however have an awesome beta, finley, who helped me out with that. Also thanks to Dark for general betaing

Moving-in day was… something else. Markus was just happy he was on the first floor of his building so he didn’t have to stand in line for the elevator with all his boxes. It was also a small miracle that his room was a single, so there was no fighting for which side of the room looked the nicest and awkwardly trying to get to know the stranger he’d be living with for a year.

There was the problem of not having someone to default hang around with for the “team building” activities that were planned for the first couple days before classes started. Not that it was a problem for Markus T. Velafi™, it was just nice to have someone to get to know the campus more, so getting lost wasn’t so terrifying.

After placing the last book on his now cramped desk, he made his way out in the hall, where nearly everyone was heading outside, making conversation with their roommates. Markus threw himself into the fray and into a conversation with two girls, one with long black hair and a permanent smirk on her face and the other with a white… poof, who seemed to be always scowling at her new roommate.

They made their way to one of the gyms, with the sidewalk lined with the poor upperclassmen pep squad members forced to come to college early in order to whoop and cheer for the incoming freshmen. Inside the gym was decorated in bright purple and green streamers and balloons, the garish color scheme concentrated mostly on the makeshift stage.

Student began filing into the rows of folding metal chairs in that awkward way of leaving gigantic gaps between groups of students in the center, leaving the awkward shuffle past to get a free seat. He followed the ladies to their row, but broke off from them when he spotted one guy with auburn hair sitting a couple rows away, not by anyone else, looking horribly nervous and playing with something on his wrist. Saying goodbye to the roommates and promising to catch them later at the picnic, Markus made his way to the fidgeting man, climbing over chairs to make his way through the rows instead of going around.

The man barely noticed Markus until he stood above him, accidentally kicking the chair beside him as he steadied himself.

Markus put on his most charming of smiles. “Hey, is this seat taken?”

“Hmmm?” the other man said, looking up and revealing bright blue eyes. “Oh, no, it’s free.”

“Okay,” Markus sat down next to him, the chair legs screeching slightly against the gym floor. The man next to him played with whatever was on his wrist again.

Not wanting to let the awkward moment linger, Markus turned to the man, smiling just as wide as before. “I’m Markus. Theater major with a possible English minor.” He held out his hand.

The man glanced at his hand and then looked at Markus.

“Um... I’m, uh, Kyr. Kyr Fiore. I am majoring in Mechanical Engineering.” His hands didn’t leave his lap.

Despite his hand hanging on for a bit too long, Markus still tried to pull it off as the ‘oh look I’m just brushing my hair behind my ear’ thing. “Engineering? Wow, that’s impressive.”

Kyr smiled and something lit up in his eye as he said, “Well actually-”

But he was cut off by the chipper voice of one of the pep squad members, signaling the start of the show. With everyone quieting down and leaving the talking to the pep squad members, Markus could see Kyr visibly relax, hands off his wrist and now leisurely tapping his leg. Markus turned his attention away from Kyr and onto the presentation.

Thirty minutes later with everyone feeling much more pep-filled, the gym was filled with the scraping of metal chairs as people rose out of their seats and made their way to the back of the gym, where they were to participate in a trust building exercise with their roommate or the person next to them.

Markus turned toward Kyr, who was now hunched over slightly, intently focused on what was on his wrist.

Markus looked around, nearly everyone was at the open space, seated back to back with their arms linked, the noise of the chairs now replaced with laughter and talking as the pairs tried to stand up on their own. He looked back to Kyr.

“Hey,” he said quietly, bending over slightly. “It’s gotten quieter… You- You don’t have to worry anymore?” Markus had floundered before, but he thought he was sinking to new depths as he tried to comfort Kyr, who he barely knew and especially didn’t know what was bothering him.

It definitely didn’t help when Kyr didn’t respond.

“Hey, buddy.” Markus tapped him on the shoulder, thinking he hadn’t heard him the first time.

Kyr jumped out of his seat, on to the one beside it. He looked up at Markus, breathing heavily, his hand going crazy, flicking the… bracelet? Around his wrist.

Markus held his hands up, almost scared at himself for the reaction he created.

“Okay… okay…” Markus repeated to himself. He glanced around and once he spotted what he was looking for, he smiled a little bit before looking back to Kyr, who still looked like a deer in headlights.

“Okay, what if we get out of here, and calm down? There’s a side entrance right there-” He pointed to the door he spotted, propped open to let cool air in. “- and everyone’s focused on the team building activity, so we won’t be bothered.”

Kyr looked from the door then back to Markus. He nodded, and got up first, nearly sprinting for the door. Markus slipped his hands in his pockets and followed, his mind going wild to try and figure out what it was that was bothering his… Kyr.

When he was outside, he saw Kyr standing in front of the wall, taking deep breaths, seemingly calmer just by being outside.

“I-I’m sorry you had to see that.” Kyr started, once he had his breath back. “It’s just the noise of the people and chairs and the fact that there's just so many! People! And then you tapped me and it… set me off. But it’s not your fault! I- Sorry.”

“No, no! It’s okay!” Markus jumped in. “You don’t have to apologize for being you. That’s… anyway, maybe we should talk about something else. Let you... cool off?”

Kyr nodded. “But about what?”

“Weeeeeeeell, you were about to say something about engineering, weren’t you?”

Kyr beamed. “Oh yeah! It was… Yeah! Engineering isn’t that hard for me, for whatever reason! Ever since I was a kid I’ve felt best making stuff. It’s just really neat! And how they fit together and how every single thing needs to be perfect in order for it to work otherwise- boom!” He threw his arms up and out, simulating the “boom!”.

Markus grinned, which sadly made Kyr stop his smiling. “Oh, sorry, I was rambling. My dad told me not to do that, but it’s reeeeeeeally hard especially when-”

“No, it’s fine!” Markus said, smile still on his face. “I love stuff like that. I put on ‘How Its Made’ whenever I needed to study in high school.”

Kyr grinned. “Bro, don’t get me started on that show.”

Markus smiled. “Okay I won’t. So what have you made recently?”

He stepped closer, showing off his wrist and the metal bracelet that hung there. He flicked at it and the inner band spun around.

“It’s not really an invention, cause I’ve heard about them before, but I wanted to make one with hammers and stuff imprinted in it, so I made it!”

Markus looked closer and, sure enough, imprinted on the spinning inner band were tiny hammers and other tools.

“That’s really awesome!” he said, grinning.

“Yeah, the hardest part was figuring out how to make it spin smoothly and not have the metal scrapping together but that was easily fixed with duct tape.”

“Duct tape?”

“Duct tape. An engineer’s best friend. It was also the only thing left in the workshop after the last explosion.”

Markus’ eyes rose up. “Explosion?”

Kyr grinned wider. “Yep, most of my experiments are more complicated than this bracelet, but don’t worry, I’m fine.”

“You are certainly interesting Kyr and I now really want to hear about all that.” He peaked in the gym, where he saw a couple people standing up while some, including the pair of roommates he met with earlier, still sitting down and struggling. “I think we have time if you want to maybe, walk around?”

“Sure! Ooooh! I’ll tell you about my rocket boots first!”

\---

It was hours later, when they were lounging about in Markus’ room, tired after spending the whole day talking and just being together, did Kyr ask the all-important question.

“Are we friends now?”

Markus looked up from his sprawl on the bed and grinned.

“Best friends.”

Kyr grinned back.


End file.
